Have you ever got lost in a mall? How about spending a couple of days or weeks or even months in a mall, without seeing the outside world. Something akin to The Terminal movie but in a positive way.
Harbour City in Hong Kong‘s Victoria Harbour area, is such a place. What were originally shipping and cargo docks and warehouses, is now the largest mall in whole of Hong Kong! With hundreds of lifestyle shops, numerous eating places, millions of square feet of property, this is perhaps the biggest ever mall we have ever been to. If you are in the neighbourhood of Tsim Sha Tsui then Harbour City is the place to be in.
If you are looking for a detailed Hong Kong – Macau itinerary, read here.
The whole shopping city, situated on Canton Road, is divided into 5 sections; Gateway Arcade, Ocean Centre, Ocean Terminal, Marco Polo Hotel Arcade and Star Annex. However when you are inside the boundaries are completely blurred.
These are a few top things to do in Harbour City.
Shopping: There are over 500 shops in the complex. I think almost all luxury designer brands of the world are represented here. Apart from inside the mall, some of the most exclusive stores are found on the Canton road including Chanel Asia’s flagship store and Louis Vuitton’s largest store in Asia.
This is probably the highest concentration of Luxury apparel, Jewellery, Footwear, accessories, electronics, cosmetics, kids, sports etc. stores under 1 roof. Often you will find a queue of people waiting to get into a store because the store keeper has restricted the number of shoppers who can get in. We are told this is done to give full attention to shoppers. This is more so when there is a festival round the corner or a discount sale going on. People don’t bring shopping bags here, they get suitcases to carry back their shopping!
We were impressed by a niche tea store, Fook Ming Tng Tea Shop, where there were many varieties of tea costing as high as USD500, some even more! The store owner was happy to let us taste their finest tea. “It is like wine” she said, “the older the better and more expensive”, while we sipped a USD 1,000 per packet flavoursome tea!
Hey kids! Do you know, one of the biggest Toys “R” Us store is here?
Dining: There are over 50 options for dining with cuisine choices spanning the globe. Buffet or a la carte, there are umpteen choices spread throughout Harbour City.
We made a meal out of the many mouth-watering varieties of Dim Sums at Ye Shanghai. There are many choices that tickles the palate of vegetarians or non-vegetarians equally. Or perhaps it is the Crab Menu you want to enjoy. All in all, I think, there are over 100 different menu items in starters or main course that you will be spoilt for choice.
Three on Canton is for those having a large appetite! They probably serve the largest eat-all-you-can multi-cuisine buffet in Hong Kong.
There are stations and stations serving dishes from various countries, including India! There were live stations cooking noodles or pasta in minutes and we tasted something from every station. Making this a, yet another, place spoiling you for choice.
They also have the finest dessert buffet too, including their Signature Warm Chocolate Pudding! Finally washing it off with their signature Earl Grape Iced tea.
One could go European on those special days at Jamie’s Italian. While we binged on the pastas and salads of the day, what we loved most was Jamie’s Grown Up Iced Tea! Grown-up because it has gin in it! Once was not enough!
We had dessert at two different deli and all I can say is that, looking at the portions, one could make a meal out of the dessert itself. The Cremadoro at iCremaria was the ultimate in taste and $$$. 😀
Not to be out done, the Korean Dessert place Hanbing was equally interesting. The young owner was always seen experimenting and styling with new ingredients and flavours.
Do you believe if we say, you may eat at an entirely different place for lunch and dinner every day for a month? There are almost 50 more options for drinks, dining or desserts in Harbour City!
Entertainment: With so many options for Shopping and dining, can entertainment be far behind? Five of the best cinemas of Hong Kong find residence in Harbour City! Each belting out Hollywood, Chinese and many times movies of other languages are screened. Some of them have as many as 900 seats!
Wellness: There was a niche face spa, CHA LING L’Esprit du Thé, who use. tea based products manufactured exclusively by them. The tea is called Pu’er tea and is grown in the Yunnan province of China. What a relaxing face massage we had here. Then we noticed that there was a section in the mall fully dedicated to all sorts of spas and wellness centres.
Festivals: On the top floor of Ocean Terminal, is a parking place and place to hold fairs and festivals. The German October Bierfest was already in full ‘flow’ at 7:00pm. The officials told us that next would be the Christmas celebrations.
Accommodation: There are several serviced apartments and 3 five star hotels within the premises! The Marco Polo Hotel, where we stayed, was perhaps the flagship hotel and has 665 rooms and suites and all with high speed Wi-Fi, which is our life line as digital influencers!
The Gateway Hotel and Prince Hotel are the other two hotels and are located adjacent to each other.
Parking with a difference: Apart from parking of land vehicles, the sides of the Ocean Terminal are used to dock Luxury Cruise Liners. The Ship with 10 floors or more are frequently found moored here.
Warning! It is said that people, when they enter Harbour City, should keep track of the time else when they come out, they may be already few days older! Well, we were living inside and only when we came out after two days, we looked at other sites around Harbour City, which is yet another story.
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